Children’s Play

To showcase the work of different theatre groups working with and for children.The festival will be organised in the national Capital from November 14 to 25, and for the first time will see international participation. The festival is a reputed theatre experience focusing on the children, representing various regions and languages from across the country and beyond. 

The National School of Drama campus will be turned into an exciting kid’s mela for this 12-day theatre carnival, as thousands of kids are expected to be a part of the festival. 

Twenty productions from India and seven productions for abroad, like Sri Lanka (English and Sinhala), Pakistan (Urdu), Turkey (Gibberish), Israel (Non Verbal), France (Non Verbal) and Switzerland (English) will feature with around 500 artistes participating in the festival. 

The 20 productions selected out of 149 entries comprise of plays from Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Delhi, West Bengal, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and Tripura. The language of the plays will be Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, English, Assamese, Malayalam and Non-verbal. 

The inaugural ceremony for the festival will be held on November 14 at the NSD campus at 5:30PM. Five professional groups from Rajasthan, Punjab, Gujarat and Delhi and schools based in Delhi-NCR, under the direction of Dr Laique Hussain will perform Bal Vrind- a musical dance to kickstart the gala event. 

In the inaugural ceremony NK Sinha, Secretary, Ministry of Culture, Govt of India will be the Chief Guest, Manoj Joshi, eminent film and theatre personality will be the special guest while Mukesh Tiwary, eminent film and theatre personality will be the guest of honour. Irrfan Khan, alumnus of NSD, eminent film and theatre personality will be present at the culmination ceremony.  

Waman Kendre, Director, National School of Drama said, “Children’s theatre is the most important aspect of theatre expression. Through ‘Jashne Bachpan’ we are trying to build the foundation of theatre from the grassroots and inculcate interest about theatre amongst the children from their childhood.  Children from various cultural and demographic backgrounds will get a chance to interact and exchange their ideas. In the process, they will make friends from across the world.

This is a testing ground for world children theatre because if we succeed in generating interest towards theatre among the kids, this will be an opening door for them for future theatre expression.”

The festival comprises of three distinct categories – performance by children, performance by children and adults and performance by adults. 

Underprivileged children from various NGOs will be invited to come and enjoy the theatre festival. The idea is to bring those children to the mainstream and inculcate enthusiasm for art and culture along with entertainment at a global platform like ‘Jashne Bachpan’.